Shift in Encinitas political landscape expected

Mayor defeated, two new council members elected

ENCINITAS — The ballot-box defeat of Encinitas Mayor Jerome Stocks and one of the two candidates he endorsed will significantly shift the city’s political structure, supporters and opponents said late last week.

The election gave Encinitas two new council members — political ethics lecturer Lisa Shaffer and printing company account executive Tony Kranz. It also will provide the city an elected mayor starting two years from now with the November 2014 election.

Councilwoman Teresa Barth, who has often been at odds with Stocks and has been in the minority on council votes, now is expected to be part of a new council majority.

Her supporters said Friday that she finally will have the chance to be the city’s mayor — a post that now rotates between council members on an annual basis. She was passed over for the job several times by the old council majority.

Barth, who supported both Kranz and Shaffer, said Friday that she expects Tuesday’s election will result in greater public involvement in government decisions. Among other things, more voices will be heard when it comes to updating the city’s general plan and the council may enact a “sunshine” ordinance that makes local government more transparent, she said.

Stocks’ supporters agreed that his loss in Tuesday’s election — and the defeat of newcomer candidate Kevin Forrester — will create a new council majority, but said it will have an anti- development bias.

“The people on the more liberal side of the equation will be dancing in the streets for a long time,” said retiring Councilman Jim Bond, who decided not to run for re-election this year after 20 years in the job.

Councilman Mark Muir, who was appointed to his spot in 2011 and elected to the seat Tuesday night, said Stocks and Bond deserve credit for supporting controversial projects that ultimately will bring great benefit to the city, particularly the now-under-construction Encinitas Community Park.

They achieved a great deal as council members, “and I don’t think they got the credit they deserved,” Muir said.

But people who opposed Stocks’ fourth re-election bid don’t see it that way. Several said Stocks shot himself in the foot when it came to his re-election campaign because of the way he recently has treated people who oppose his views.

“You can’t be that arrogant, that vindictive … that pompous and not offend people on both sides of (an) issue,” said Olivenhain resident Bruce Ehlers, a former city planning commissioner who has been active in Encinitas elections.

Stocks is known for his outspoken nature — he describes himself as “pugnacious.” His opponents refer to him as a “verbal bully,” and say public opinion toward the council majority, particularly Stocks, started shifting in fall 2011 with the death of then-Councilwoman Maggie Houlihan.

Stocks, who became mayor in late 2011, had long been at odds with Houlihan, and the city did little to mark her passing.

Unlike Poway where the 2009 death of former Mayor Mickey Cafagna led to the re-naming of a roadway and a community center, Houlihan’s passing was marked by discord. An arts organization had to fight with the city over efforts to allow the temporary posting of banners with a memorial message for her, recalled Ehlers, who was Houlihan’s campaign manager.

Many political observers, including Stocks’ supporters, said last week that Houlihan had a huge effect on Tuesday’s election. The candidate she endorsed — Shaffer — was by far the top vote-getter.